As the various pursuits of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. generate pushback from the scientific Left, they draw out distinctions between the two camps’ aims, either to alter humans or to alter what they consume.

The broad goal of any purportedly humanitarian organization, of course, is to alleviate afflictions of disease, isolation, or human suffering, generally. Here, Kennedy and those anti-Kennedy coincide in motive, and soon after diverge on what to target. Much comes down to whether the source of a given affliction is something input to society or something of an undesirable human characteristic — no small difference, practically, so it makes all the more sense that the two are proving themselves to be philosophical opponents.